August 2013 - Author S.R.Claridge takes a stand against a publishing scam, warning other authors to avoid Vanilla Heart.
By: Michael Duran
Ever since the
October 2012 release of the controversial S.R. Claridge novel, House of Lies, we’ve
been following the author, who up until this month spoke highly of Vanilla
Heart Publishing, promising that the sequel to House of Lies would be released later
this year. It seems now all bets are
off.
Claridge posted a
blog, dated August 20, 2013 entitled “Why I Left Vanilla Heart Publishing” that
went industry viral and has us wondering what happened?
Why is she warning other
authors to stay away from her former publisher, Vanilla Heart? In her blog she
cites breach of contract, misrepresentation, fraud and theft. Those are big
accusations and after further digging, what we discovered is that Claridge has
the facts to back them up.
In the blog posted August
20, 2013 Claridge states she terminated her relationship with Vanilla Heart ten
days prior, citing breach of contract specific to Articles #5, #7, #10,
#11. We weren’t able to get a statement
from Claridge at this time, but we did manage to obtain a copy of the Vanilla
Heart author contract and substantiate Claridge’s claims against them. We were also able to talk with several former
Vanilla Heart authors who had similar tales to tell.
Breach #1:
Article #5 Copyright: “The Publisher, upon first publication of the Work, agrees
duly to copyright it with the relevant authority in the United States in the
name of the Author, and to take all necessary steps to protect the
copyright under the Universal Copyright Convention. The cost of the copyright will be at Publisher’s
expense.”
None of
Claridge’s eight novels held a U.S. Copyright adherent to the contractual terms
and neither did many of the other Vanilla Heart authors whom we researched,
namely: Smoky Zeidel.
Melinda Clayton. Chelle
Cordero. Charmaine Gordon. Kate Evans.
Anne K. Albert. Michelle
Devon. Collin Kelley. Vila Spiderhawk. Robert Hays.
Malcolm Campbell. Victoria
Howard. Jeffrey Martin. Brenda Hill.
Angela Austin. Marie Hampton. Lauren Harvey. Sandy Nicks.
Marilyn Morris. Misha Crews and Janet Lane Walters. Some of their books had been submitted for
copyright by the author themselves or by another publisher, but very few were
submitted by Kimberlee Williams of Vanilla Heart.
Breach #2:
Article #7 Royalties and Licenses: “The
Author or his duly authorized representatives shall have the right upon written
request to examine the books of account of the Publisher insofar as they relate
to Author’s Works under contract to the Publisher. Such examination shall be at the cost of the
Author unless errors of
accounting amounting to five percent (5%) or more of the total sum paid
to the Author shall be found to Author’s disadvantage, in which case, the cost
shall be borne by the Publisher.”
In a complaint
filed by Claridge with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, made
public by the State, the author writes that a comparative analysis of the
reports given to her by Vanilla Heart and those obtained directly from the
distributors (namely Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble) show a “vast
difference” in the amount Claridge earned in royalties and the amount Vanilla Heart
actually paid to the author.
Several former Vanilla Heart authors also
confirmed that their sales did not match with the amount of money they were paid. One author stated she never received a
paycheck from Vanilla Heart at all. “I
only received excuses,” she said.
Breach #3:
Article #10 Statements and Payments: “The Publisher agrees to render royalty and
sales statements on or
about the last day of each of the following months: February and August for the royalty period
prior showing an account of sales and all other payments due, as well as
returns, if any. Payment then due
shall accompany such statements or be remitted within 15 business days of the
statement, except when the amount due is less than twenty-five dollars
($25.00), which shall be held until the next period. Shorter interval electronic books royalty
payments will be determined by Publisher and once the decision is organized,
will be announced in the Author’s Group, however, to receive monthly or
bi-monthly ebook royalties, Author must maintain a Paypal account. Should author choose not to maintain a Paypal
account, ebook royalties will be paid with print book royalties at the above-stated
terms.”
According
to the complaint Claridge filed against Vanilla Heart, the author received only
three payments since her first novel debuted in October 2010. One on 8/24/11, a second on 3/15/12 and a
third on 11/14/12.
Per the
contract, Claridge should have received a minimum of six royalty statements and
payments from Vanilla Heart and they should have arrived in the months of
February 2011, August 2011, February 2012, August 2012, February 2013, and August
2013.
An
anonymous source told us that in the two years he was with Vanilla Heart
publishing, he “never received a payment on time.”
Another ex-member
of the Vanilla Heart group told us that she “never received a statement at all.”
We sought
to justify Vanilla Heart’s lack of payments and late payments by conducting a random
search of sales numbers for five former Vanilla Heart authors, using such
channels as NovelRank. It was our intent
to prove that these authors had not met the $25.00 minimum as stated in the
contract and would therefore have had their monies held until the next
reporting period. Claridge was one of
the authors we chose for our research. What
we discovered is that not one of the five fell below the quarterly $25.00
minimum; thus, all five should have received regular statements and payments.
Breach #4:
Article #11 Reversion and Termination, subset (b):
“If the Publisher shall,
during the term of this agreement, default in the delivery of scheduled
statements or in the making of payments as herein provided and shall neglect or
refuse to deliver such statements or make such payments, within thirty (30)
days after written notice of such default, this agreement shall terminate
at the expiration of thirty (30) days without prejudice to the Author’s claim
for any monies which may have accrued under this agreement or to any other
rights and remedies to which the Author may be entitled.”
Claridge blogged: “I requested royalty statements from Vanilla
Heart at least eight documented times since October 2010.” She also
stated that she received only one statement on 8/24/11, which she has now
confirmed does not reconcile with the sales numbers given by the distributors.
The
evidence against Vanilla Heart just keeps piling up.
After
interviewing several former Vanilla Heart authors, we uncovered an even greater
breach: Copyright Infringement. Consultation with our legal team confirmed
that the contracts Vanilla Heart distributed to their authors were bilateral
agreements, wherein both parties enter into a mutual agreement and are only
considered legal and binding if both parties sign and remit a copy of said
agreement. Claridge states in her blog
that she has never received a signed copy of any contract from Vanilla Heart,
and she isn’t the only one.
Six other
authors to whom we spoke stated they have never received a signed contract, and
several stated they had never received a contract at all. In her statement to the Attorney General,
Claridge wrote, “I never even received a contract for Petals of Blood or for
the audiobook version of Tetterbaum’s Truth, much less a mutually signed agreement.”
Simply put,
Vanilla Heart did not contractually own the rights to their author’s
intellectual property and has financially benefitted through the fraudulent
misuse and abuse of said property. This
is called Copyright Infringement and it’s not only a big NO-NO; it’s a criminal
offense.
Claridge’s
claims against Vanilla Heart for breach of contract are easily substantiated
and the question now is will the author, or any of the previous authors, take
legal action against their former publisher?
If they do, they are certainly not standing alone, as the number of
author exodus from Vanilla Heart and the collective amount of money withheld
from the authors lays a solid foundation for a class-action suit.
This month
alone (August 2013) seven authors have left Vanilla Heart, but that is nothing
compared to the number of authors who have left in years prior.
Read what
former Vanilla Heart author, Ryan
Callaway, had to say about his experience.
Another former Vanilla Heart author, Mary Quast, wrote, “I
terminated my contract but it took over a year to get my rights back. Never did
see any money.”
Upon termination, per Vanilla Heart’s
contracts, all rights should be immediately reverted to the author. This is stated in Article #11 (e): “Upon the termination of this agreement for
any cause under this Article or Article 12 hereof, all rights granted to the
Publisher shall revert to the Author for his use at any time and the Publisher
shall return to the Author all property originally furnished by the Author, or,
in the case of electronic materials furnished by the author, destroy the
files.”
Quast’s rights should have been immediately
reverted back to her along with all monies owed in royalties. Any practice less than this is negligence.
A visit to
the Absolute
Write site reveals more authors sharing their negative experiences with
Vanilla Heart, including but not limited to poor formatting, editing and unprofessional
finished products.
Last week, Victoria
Strauss, who is renowned in the industry for
her work and her industry related warnings, (Writer Beware) blogged to warn authors
about Vanilla Heart and tweeted that warning to her more than 11,000 followers.
But will
this be enough to stop Vanilla Heart from abusing other authors?
A quick
background check would indicate “No.”
Kimberlee Williams, owner and sole publisher of Vanilla Heart, is running another imprint, Caged Heart Publishing, with a
special emphasis on erotica. She ran a
previous imprint which she closed in 2002 via filing Chapter 7 and re-emerged under
the name of Vanilla Heart Publishing.
Previous business partner, Michelle Devon, (penname Michy Anderson)
split from Kimberlee Williams (penname Olivia Faulkner) over business disputes.
How does
Vanilla Heart stay in business? One way is that Williams keeps her former
authors from talking via a gag order placed in the fine print of the Vanilla
Heart termination policy, a policy that is not part of the original contract
and is only given to the author at the time he or she requests
termination. It states: “In addition, the author agrees not to discuss the Author’s Group or
any information from that group, or discuss Vanilla Heart Publishing, nor speak
as an agent or former agent of the publisher, either by verbal, written, or
electronic communication with any persons, groups, or agents.”
The fine
print in the termination policy carries the underlying implication that the
author will not receive their rights in a timely manner if they do not adhere
to or obey the guidelines set forth. Our
legal team called this bordering on blackmail.
It poses the question how many ex-Vanilla Heart authors have been
blackmailed into silence? In writing this
article alone, several authors either responded with “no comment” or did not
respond to our questions at all. Several others agreed to be quoted but only if they could remain anonymous. We can
only assume this is fear driven from William’s illegal silencing order.
One author,
who asked to remain anonymous, said, “I want to tell you what happened but I
don’t have my rights back from Kimberlee yet.” We wrote back to inform this person that contractually, like Quast, via Article #11(e), they legally have their rights back.
How many
authors have stayed long-term with Vanilla Heart Publishing? Of the twenty-five
mentioned throughout this article and whom we’ve researched, only four remain. That’s
a staggering exodus of 84%.
Like a modern-day Moses, Claridge and the other ex-Vanilla Heart authors are learning from their mistakes and leading the way toward redemption, hoping to save other authors from the same fate.
An exodus from
any publisher should send a red flag to the industry as a whole, but especially
to authors who are seeking a publisher for their work.
Industry
veteran, L.Walker wrote, “It is businesses like this that give other small
presses a bad name.”
It would
certainly behoove legitimate publishers to work to rid the industry of
unethical companies, but that’s a harder process than one might think. Author Shelley Freedman said, “Authors are
afraid their work will disappear forever if they don’t do exactly what their
publisher tells them. By the time they
wake up and see they’re being scammed, they’re already trapped.”
“It's ironic that it's Vanilla Heart's
apparent bad behavior that enabled its authors to get free,” said Victoria
Strauss. “If there had been no problems,
Vanilla Heart could have held on to those authors indefinitely.”
Irony or a miracle? Depends on who you
ask. Either way, it seems Vanilla Heart
has buried itself beneath a pile of unethical practices that have come back to
bite them and have legally set their captives free.
###
What is that truth? According to a former IHOP Editor, “members
suffer from a spirit of elitism, and a demonic arrogance that trickles down
from the top and stems from the belief that they really are the chosen members
of God’s elite army.” Upon what is this
belief based? A vision allegedly given
to Mike Bickle from God. 
